Branding and your Substack! 🎨 💫
Stay Creative on Substack (with Style) #6
Stylin' is a whole load of fun!
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Hi Sparklers,
I wanted to curate all the branding wizards and Substack styling experts in one place because I get asked about design/ styling quite a lot. But before we get there…
What is ‘personal branding’? Branding isn’t design - that’s part of it but it’s actually more about your heart and soul and how that translates to the external dress of your publication… It can be playful, it should be easy to recognise and unique.
Think about how you feel when you receive an email/ post from your favourite author or creator… what is that emotion? Held, inspired, educated, ready to take action?
Branding is the process of creating a distinct identity for a business in the minds of your target audience. At its core, branding consists of a company name and logo, visual identity design, mission, values, and tone of voice. We wrote more of this in our book; How to Build a World Class Substack.
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How to find/ discover/ tune into your personal brand?
Back in June 2023, I had a WHOOSH of energy to set up Sparkle on Substack as a space for those who wanted to stay creative on Substack, a hub, a community. It took a year to complete the vision. 💫
I like to think of branding as an embodied state of everything (for my business) from writing this piece for you to the words that flow from my voice when I teach classes in the membership.1
For
- I just knew the voice right away, I saw it’s energy, I got going. It was quiet here on Substack back then so done was better than perfect and I still stand by intention.Your words are what really matter and getting secure in your branding is the cherry on the cake, one that (in my experience) takes time to put together, bake and decorate. The whole package acts as a beacon to you and your work… a cake shop with a queue out of the door if you will - 🧁 💫
Taking our time…we have time
I usually bring in a professional team for my projects but here on Substack I wanted to give myself time to build the joyful, sustainable vision.
During that time, I’ve leant into education (workshops) from professional branding experts
and who both give me permission to consider, slow down and think about how my brand design connects to my voice. It’s an ongoing process for me and one I like.Top tip 1 - The first question I get asked from folks starting here is how to start and in that first few months of figuring out what you have to say is precious and beautiful. The visuals can come later.
Top tip 2 - If you are considering stylin’ up your Substack, feel free to take your time with it, be expansive, make mood boards and brand boards and delight your spirit with the work.
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Stylin’ templates I made, you can use
I almost didn’t share these because I cannot be Girl Friday for Substack wordmarks/ design BUT I am here sharing them. 🙈 Sending you all the magic pixie dust and hope for yours! 🧚🏻♀️
A “wordmark”/ publication header
Here is a canva word mark template for you to edit with your own font and colours. NB - the wordmark upload can be glitchy and it sometimes uploads tiny… I can’t help with that other than to advise to try these 3 things - 1. try another type face and make sure the design is horizontal rather than stacked. 2. drag your design to the outer edges, 3. drag and drop it rather than press upload. I know - gremlins! 🧌
A Page Break Template
Here is a canva template for you to edit with your own brand colours. It’s meant to be a starting point for inspiration.
Top tip - Once you’ve set up your ‘template newsletter post’ adorned with delightful page breaks and other design elements you like, you can ‘duplicate’ it each time to save you time.
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The Design Pros
Graphic designers, soulful storytellers, illustrators
Here are my recommendations of who/ how to explore what to do to bed in and make your Substack your BEAUTIFUL online home. Soooo there are a few new folks popped up since I pulled together the Substack SOS page of services across design, VA, audio and video.
I have tried a few times to reach out to illustrators who you can commission for your Substack but my feeling is they are all a bit busy - there’s a bit of traction in this note if you are looking for someone to illustrate for you.
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Bespoke Design Advice for your Substack
wrote a lovely piece featuring a nice front door analogy I think you’ll like;
Here’s who can help you with mentoring, support, design and bespoke services for styling up your Substack.
Dominic Raad runs TENT from his impossibly cute garden studio ‘the shed’ and had been a branding and design person for over 30 years, so he knows a LOT about what it takes to get a brand right and roll it out over all the things.
Dom can create a new logo and brand for you and can also work with an existing brand style to create all the essential bits that you will need to add that consistent, creative and professional touch to your Substack. Beyond that he has a great small business package for those needing a logo and website too so definitely one for writers and creative businesses to check out. Logo work starts at £350+VAT.
He’s the partner of Sarah Raad at Gather & Grow and you can find him in his shed or at www.tent.uk.com he’s also on instagram www.instagram.com/tentspitch
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over at Brand Seasons. Sarah’s branding is thoughtful and considered and I love being in her paid member’s space here. Sarah was one of my first 1-2-1 clients and has recently been on my podcast. You can listen/ watch here.
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gets booked up but it’s always worth and email and her free posts are super valuable when it comes to organising your Substack too.
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I just made friends with Nan over at who styled up
’s Substack. She has a couple of Substacks you should check out.
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My wonderful VA has bespoke packages here. I invited Sophie to teach on my ‘Your Beautiful (Substack) Magazine’ course over summer and it was a super popular session with many lightbulb moments for my clients. I learn a lot from Sophie’s approach to design although our aesthetics are very different. I’ve been working on my ‘brand board’ in canva since she taught me about those and it’s really helped me see the bigger picture.
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The lovely
has an independent Substack called where you can grab some FREE canva templates to plug in and play around with. They are beautiful but I have seen a tonne of them used and not really edited so do add in your own unique colour palette/ twist if you can? Unique branding makes a Substack memorable.
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- has recently set out her lovely stall to help you with all sorts of Substack SOS requests here. Go check out what she has for you;
Know about other styling support or found something you’d like to share?
We’d love to hear about it in the comments. Please restack this article so other’s can find it and choose someone lovely to work with and support in stylin’ up their Substack!
Tell me, what’s been your experience with stylin’ up your Substack?
Claire
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PS - My signature course - ‘Your Beautiful Substack Magazine’ runs live again in February or you can buy the ‘ever green’ version which has all the tutorials right here and access everything to design up your homepage in your own time.
It was so important to figure out my voice for Substack education to ensure the ‘right fit’ people found me, joined us here and were part of the Sparkle community to support others. If my voice was confused, my members would have been too. To find yours come join us in Perfectly Imperfect Podcasting - my signature course for better understanding the voice you want to use here in both audio and written form and lean into experiments with video/ audio as part of that process. We start Friday!
Claire, you're always so generous about sharing and collaboration. I appreciate so much that you've mentioned me again, and I see lots of names that offer great things to help the community! I chatted with Jen Baxter the other day about also putting together a little "services networking" page. Of course you'll be on it! 😊
I was just thinking I need to brighten up my Substack. This is such great timing — thanks for sharing so many cool things!